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You need not be sorry for her. She was one of the kind that likes to grow up. In the end, she grew up of her own free will a day quicker than the other girls. —J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan
Water. Like I was behind a waterfall, deep inside a cave.
“Why am I not locked in my room?” he asked me, coming out of the darkness and stepping into the faint moonlight streaming through the windows. He cocked his head, his hair disheveled and the tail of his wrinkled Oxford hanging out. “We’re not allowed around the women,” he said, sounding just as confused as me. “Are you with the doctor? Is he here?”
“The locations change,” he said, and I backed up a step for every step toward me he took. “But the name stays the same. Blackchurch.”
“Senators . . .” I trailed off, something sparking in my memory.
Baby will grayson
It was like Lord of the Flies but with dinner jackets.
I was in the middle of nowhere with who knew how many men who’d been without any source of vice or contact with the outside world for who knew how long; one of whom had a great desire to torture me if he ever got his hands on me again. And, according to Taylor, I had little hope of any help for the next month.
wolves. They surround you. All except one. He came at you from the front.
I didn’t think it would happen like this, but I always knew it was coming.
“I wish I’d never met you,” I said, almost whispering. He stopped, glass grinding under him. “Believe me, girl, the feeling is fucking mutual.”
Just keep it together. Time would pass. Life would move on. I was heading in the right direction. Just keep going.
And suddenly, for a moment, I wished I was them. Anyone other than me. No wonder hardly anyone at this school liked me. I was even tired of myself.
I could feel his eyes on me as I stared out the window.
Will, Kai, Damon, and Michael. The Four Horsemen.
someone should really tell them it wasn’t scary when you had to tell everyone how scary you were.
I wasn’t interested. And he hated that.
“I know I may seem like the nicest one, and you probably think I regret the shit I give you sometimes, and someday I’ll wake up and reevaluate my life and its purpose, but I won’t. I sleep like a baby at night.”
“You wake every two hours and cry?” I asked.
“Don’t you know that you can have anything you want?” His eyes searched mine. “I’ll hurt anyone for you.”
“Who is it?” he asked. “Who do I have to hurt?” My eyes burned. Why did he do this? He’d soften and tempt me with the fantasy that I wasn’t alone and maybe—possibly—there was hope.
“And how often a matter of right or wrong is simply just a matter of perspective. To a fox, the hound is the villain. To a hound, the wolf. To a wolf, a human, and so on.”
“‘I knew I had fallen in love with Lolita forever; but I also knew she would not be forever Lolita.’”
“Abuse can feel like love.” I blinked, the voice so close that my ears tingled. Slowly, I raised my eyes to look at the side of Damon Torrance’s face, his shirt wrinkled, and his tie draped around his neck. The whole class fell silent, and I glanced at Will next to me, seeing his eyebrows pinched together as he looked at the back of his friend’s head. Mr. Townsend approached. “‘Abuse can feel like love . . .’” he repeated. “Why?” Damon remained so still it didn’t look like he was breathing. He looked at the teacher, unwavering. “Starving people will eat anything.”
“You never surprise me, do you? There’s a right way and wrong way to do things, Emory. Why do you always do it the wrong way?”
I hissed at the pain. I winced, and I cowered. But I didn’t cry. Not anymore. Not until after he was gone.
He’d changed. He looked exactly the same and worlds different at the same time.
“Her name is Emory Scott,”
“Your friends have moved on,” I told him. “Buying up Thunder Bay. Starting families. Probably happy to be rid of their weakest link.” My eyes burned on him. “Even Damon seems happy, judging from the news I catch from home. No falter in his steps as he does just fine without you.”
I didn’t know anything about fighting back or protecting myself, but I knew that nothing surprised me.
Turning back to him, I stared up into his eyes as my fingers clutched his shoulders. And then I felt it. The smile still on my face. I was smiling. A little.
He didn’t want me. He wanted to use me, and no matter how much I wanted to indulge a fantasy of fun and excitement, I’d be the one to pay later. Not him.
“Real monsters don’t wear masks, William Grayson III,” I retorted. “They look like everyone else.”
Why couldn’t guys this cute ever be nice?
She hadn’t changed a bit. Why the fuck was she here?
“It’s not my fault that you wrapped your entire happiness up in some delusion you’d cooked up in your head where I loved you and life would be right as rain if we were together.”
They’d sent her here. I knew it. But why? To motivate me?
They thought that because I liked being nice, that I didn’t know how to be mean. And believe me, I was capable.
“I shouldn’t have everything I want, either,” he argued. “Getting what you want risks losing what you already have, and nothing can come between us.” He looked up, meeting my eyes. “Nothing will be as perfect as this. I don’t like change.”
“She’ll never be to you what we are,” he told me, “because she’s too scared, too proud, and too boring.” He stopped and finally turned to me. “She’d never love you like you deserve, because she doesn’t respect you. You’re too shallow to her.”
I was nothing, and she knew it, and in ten years, she’d be amazing, and I’d be nothing.
It wasn’t a dream. I was at Blackchurch.
“All I have to do is win?” I pressed. Will lurched forward before he could respond, his whole body tight and flexed.
“Emmy, Jesus . . .” Will glared at me, his eyes drifting down my body.
Im ff crying 'emmy'
“Use your head,” he told me, carrying me into his room as if I weighed nothing. “You’ll need it to stay alive, because this is not how we end, Emory Scott.”
Every little thing you could do made you feel stronger. I have this, so I don’t need you. I have that, so I don’t need you.
“In twenty years, you’ll all be your fathers—powerful, wealthy, and with a string of mistresses your wives will be drugging themselves in order to forget that you have.” I stood up, looking down on him. “But even as a master of the universe, Will Grayson III will never forget that I was one notch on his belt that he could never get. I’m not going to let you win this one. At least I’ll have that.”
He pulled me in, and I opened my mouth to protest, but instead of a kiss, he just pulled me into his arms, pressed my head to his shoulder, and wrapped his arms around me so tight, it felt like he was the one about to break, not me. I stilled, not sure what to do, but I could feel every muscle in his body flex as he held me and took deep breaths. And slowly, I closed my eyes, every ounce of fight draining out of me, feeling his embrace. It had been so long since I felt this. My grandmother was hardly lucid enough to hug me much anymore. My arms itched, wanting to touch him. God, I wanted to
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I was a fighter once.
I was pretty sure these two might just be happy staying here for the rest of their lives if they had each other.
it took everything I had not to look at him, because if I did, he’d know . . . He would know that I didn’t always hate him.
